Moderation Effect of Software Engineers’ Emotional Intelligence (EQ) between their Work Ethics and their Work Performance

Abstract

In today’s world, software is being used in every sector, be it education, healthcare, security, transportation, finance and so on. As software engineers are affecting society greatly, if they do not behave ethically, it could cause widespread damage, such as the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018. Therefore, investigating the ethics of software engineers and the relationships it has with other interpersonal variables such as work performance is important for understanding what could be done to improve the situation. Software engineers work in rapidly-changing business environments which lead to a lot of stress. Their emotions are important for dealing with this, and can impact their ethical decision-making. In this quantitative study, the researcher aims to investigate whether Emotional Intelligence (EQ) moderates the relationship between work ethics of software engineers and their work performance using hierarchical multiple regression analysis in SPSS. The findings have found that EQ does significantly moderate the relationship between work ethics and work performance. These findings provide valuable information for improving the ethical behaviour of software engineers.